Why Immunodeficiency Canada makes a difference!
John Paul’s Story
John Paul Jones was born in 1958, when little was known about Primary Immunodeficiency or its effects. He had been sick most of his first seven years of life, suffering from recurrent bouts of infections. Antibiotics did not work. In one year alone, he had pneumonia three times. He contracted bronchiectasis. One of his lungs collapsed under the strain and had to be removed. At the age of seven, John Paul was diagnosed with hypogammaglobulinemia (a Primary Immunodeficiency), which meant that he had no way to fight off infection.
Brooklyn Peters’ story, as told by her mother
October 29, 2001 was the happiest day of my life. It was the birth of our second, beautiful daughter, Brooklyn. She was seemingly healthy but by two months of age, Brooklyn had a clear, runny nose. Her doctor assured me there was nothing to worry about. Within a month she had started coughing and after a few days, I took her to our clinic. The on-call doctor performed a very thorough examination and recommended cough syrup. Shortly thereafter, on February 13, we flew to Florida for a nice relaxing vacation and ended up in a living nightmare. For six days, Brooklyn’s cough continued. We had no choice but to take her to the nearest Emergency Room.
David’s Story as told by his father
David, our third child, was born in February 1992 a happy and seemingly healthy baby. David got the first of many colds and ear infections when he was about six weeks old and, consequently, was put on antibiotics. We were concerned that David was sick all the time and was repeatedly on antibiotics for colds and ear infections. Then when David was five months old he got very sick. David had developed pneumonia and was hospitalized. It was only then that a specialist diagnosed David with Severe Combined Immune Deficiency Syndrome (SCIDS), a life threatening Primary Immunodeficiency.
Baden’s Story as told by his mother, Joanne Klein
Baden was born on February 6, 2003. We were so happy to complete our family with a little boy to join our three year old daughter. The doctors told us that Baden was healthy and we went home. At nine days old Baden started coughing, and wouldn’t feed. Baden was admitted to the local hospital for what we thought would be a short stay. We did not realize that our lives were about to change forever.
Toni’s story, an adult with CVID
My body held a secret for a very long time even though clues had abounded all my life in the form of frequent health problems. I had a lot of fatigue, recurrent respiratory infections, and viral illnesses lasting weeks and often months. For weeks on end, I was unable to sleep more than an hour or two at a time because of pain. Yet, no one realized there was an underlying cause.